anybody know anything about the quality of this old lense . i am replacing my gear that was stolen /on a low budget . It doesnt have to be brilliant as i only do the occasional 8x10 thanks in advance Rod

-- Rod Scott (petographer@ozemail.com.au), April 10, 2002

Answers

I have many 11 x 14 enlargements from the early 1990s taken with this lens and an EOS 10S. It is a sharp and contrasty lens, about the same as the EF28-105 3.5-4.5 USM that replaced it 1992. It's a push-pull design and is a bit on the loud side, at least compared to USM glass. Although it has a plastic barrel, it is sturdy and sports a metal mount. This is certainly a fine lens if the condition and price are good.

-- Puppy Face (doggieface@aol.com), April 11, 2002.

The usual places to go to look this stuff up include:

http://www.photodo.com/ http://www.photozone.de/ http://www.photographyreview.com/

-- Steve Dunn (steved@ussinc.com), April 11, 2002.

The EF35-105 3.5-4.5 and EF35-135 3.5-4.5 were released with the 650 and 620 in the late 1980s. Both optics were history by 1992, replaced by zooms with USM. Photodo was just a twinkle in the eye of Papado and, alas, he never knew the delight of those optics. In other words, there are no reviews at Photodo on these and many other Canon lenses.

-- Puppy Face (doggieface@aol.com), April 11, 2002.

This lens was with my firstEOS purchase and it still sits with my backup gear in my car. I can tell you from having shot about 1,500 pictures with it that there are both good and bad. First the good; 1.The color corection is very good thanks to the aspherical element in the 12th position. 2. the lens has good close focusing ability without focal length loss due to internal focusing like latter zooms. 3. the lens has good sharpness from f6.7 to 22 The bad; 1. It is not nearly as sharp as the 28-105 I dont know who said that but it is untrue. 2. it has high field curvature and poor macro performance until f11 3. it is prone to flare, use a hood. Those are the pluses and minuses, e mail me with any further questions. jc

-- joe cap (joemocap@yahoo.com), April 12, 2002.

Joe,

Are you sure we're talking about the same lens? The 1987 EF35-105 3.5-4.5 focused by front element extension and was a pain with rotating filters. The 1991 EF35-105 4.0-5.6 (twist zoom no distance window) was a bit of a bow-wow.

-- Puppy Face (doggieface@aol.com), April 13, 2002.

Yes we are talking about the same lens, Im glad that you mentioned the rotating front element, I was going to mention it as a negative but I have mixed feelings about it. The 28-105 when shooting a portrait at 105 can reduce focal length down to about 86mm at closest focus, this is due to the internal focusing. the old 35-105f3.5-4.5 keeps its 105, thats almost a 20mm difference, but as you pointed out it makes it inconvienient when using filters. so I see it as a mixed bag. jc

-- joe cap (joemocap@yahoo.com), April 13, 2002.

Puppy face, after looking back at my original message my reference as advantage number 2 was refering to latter zooms having focal length loss due to internal focusing. I should been more clear. jc

-- joe cap (joemocap@yahoo.com), April 13, 2002.

Joe, I really liked the EF35-105 3.5-4.5 when I owned it. It was my first "good" zoom. All I have are many fond memories and Kodachromes as it has been many years since I last used one!I've used the EF28-105 3.5-4.5 USM 10 years (3 different copies due to unfortunate events!) and I agree it is a better lens in most ways.

I live in Hawaii and shot many bright sunsets with that old lens and found flare and ghosting to be minor issues. On the other hand, the EF28-105 3.5-4.5 USM has very bad barrel distortion at the short end when focusing closer that 5 feet (it's pretty good at infinity). I wasn't aware of this problem until I shot a bunch of doorways at Korean temples some years ago. They were sharp but looked like they were made of rubber! The old EF35-105 3.5-4.5 may be the same in this regard, I don't recall and have no doorway images to check, but I'll take your word for it.

Here's an image I took with the EOS 10S & EF35-105 3.5-4.5 (hope my html works)

-- Puppy Face (doggieface@aol.com), April 13, 2002.

It looks like both flare and internal reflections were well under controll in that shot. I don't have a way to foward one of my recent shots to this forum, but I will send you and Rod a recent shot with this lens from an article I did on the new fishing restrictions effecting gloucester MA fishermen.

-- joe cap (joemocap@yahoo.com), April 13, 2002.